Mars Rover Sky Crane: Drone Test

The Perseverance Mars rover successfully landed in Jezero Crater after being delivered via rocket powered 'sky crane.' I dressed my drone up as the sky crane and built a DIY winch to explore the dynamics of this interesting system, that upon first glance, looks like a pendulum. Turns out, landing a rover on Mars via sky crane is really, really, difficult and far more complicated than a simple pendulum.

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dRehmFlight Flight Controller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlD0C5CrWcA

Many people often get confused when it comes to stability of flying systems, as they are often compared to pendulums. This is most commonly known as the rocket pendulum fallacy, where it is believed that a system can achieve passive stability simply by 'hanging' more mass at the bottom. When in reality, a flying body rotates about its center of mass regardless of the way the mass is distributed. Tom Stanton produced an excellent video exploring this concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYHCP3-mpxk
It may be easy to see the dangling Mars rover and try to apply this false logic to the stability of the sky crane-rover system. The true dynamics reveal that there is a coupling between the two that, when not accounted for in the sky crane's landing control system, makes the system nearly impossible to safely land.

00:00 Intro
01:06 Setting Up
01:42 Flight Testing
06:13 Dynamics Explained

#Mars2020 #Perseverance #Drone

Видео Mars Rover Sky Crane: Drone Test канала Nicholas Rehm